Mobile County school system spends more on administrative costs than other districts

MOBILE, Ala. -- Mobile County schools direct less money, percentage-wise, to classroom instruction than any other of the state’s 10 largest school systems, a new study shows.

Eighty-one percent of Mobile County’s money goes to instruction, and 19 percent to central office administration, facility costs and instructional support, according to a study by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, based at Samford University in Birmingham.

The typical school system in Alabama spends 85 percent in the classroom.

Jim Williams, PARCA executive director, said during a presentation in Mobile that it was “worth considering” whether Mobile County should put more dollars into classrooms. Shifting just 1 percent from administration to instruction would provide an additional $4.8 million.

Mobile County, which has laid off hundreds of teachers and others over the last couple of years, recently cut $3 million from its central office, including firing employees and freezing positions. That cut did not show up on the PARCA report, which was based on data from last year.

“We get more federal money than anyone else in the state. That requires us to hire additional people to keep track of how we’re spending the money,” said Mobile County schools Superintendent Roy Nichols.

“I think we certainly need to look at the central office side and keep those expenditures as low as we can,” Nichols said, “but I don’t think our central office costs are too much. My issue is what is counted as central office.”

PARCA’s tallies of central office expenses for school systems, for example, included costs of construction and maintenance. Nichols said he believes that construction directly benefits the classroom.

Taking out student transportation and food costs, Mobile County spends $8,100 per student, slightly higher than the state average of $8,000.

Baldwin County spends less money per student, overall, at about $7,500, yet uses 86 percent of its funds in the classroom.

Baldwin schools Superintendent Alan Lee said he still wants to transfer more from the central office to the classroom.

Lee said that he plans to cut some central office positions — through attrition, not layoffs — to open more slots for teachers.

“I would like to see teachers play a role in what they’re doing in the classrooms, by deciding themselves how we’re going to respond to state and federal mandates,” Lee said. “Those people have a much better idea what to do than I do.”

On standardized reading and math tests, Mobile County elementary pupils outperform their Baldwin counterparts, while in middle school and high school, Baldwin students do better, according to the PARCA study and a Press-Register analysis. Students in both counties beat the state averages on such tests.

The Mobile County office of the Alabama Education Association teachers union has been critical of the central office expenses, particularly of the $100,000-plus salaries of the top administrators known as assistant superintendents.

Danny Goodwin, a local AEA director, said that the system has made some improvements, replacing retired assistant superintendents — those over human resources and student support services — with lesser-paid executive managers instead. But he said that the recent central office cuts fell more on the backs of support personnel, such as clerks.

“They’ve made some strides,” Goodwin said, “but we think there should be a little more scrutiny at the highest level.”